Saturday, July 25, 2009

Transaction Oracle Guidelines for Associated Press quotes

In light of the Associated Press’s revival of the attempt to license use of material that would otherwise clearly fall within the fair use exceptions of the Copyright Act of 1976, I felt it was a good time to clarify how the Associated Press may use any and all intellectual property stemming from Dan Szymborski and Dan Szymborski-related businesses.

When anything about Dan Szymborski, including use of Dan Szymborski’s name and all derivatives thereof (including but not limited to Daniel Szymborski, Danny Szymborski, D. Szymborski) is used in an Associated Press article, the following licensing fees are required from the Associated Press:

Licensing agreements may be arranged by contacting me at my e-mail address. By reading this agreement and not setting all vehicles registered under your name immediately on fire, you also stipulate, under the terms of this licensing arrangement, that for members of the Associated Press, that any and all words read that pass through your eyes to your brain constitute publication of said words, and the proper licensing fee will be paid. Furthermore, all licensees agree to indemnify Dan Szymborski from anything and everything at all throughout the universe, even actions that the Associated Press is not a party to.

As an example, if the Associated Press wishes to use information from my analysis of the Matt Holliday trade, here is an appropriate excerpt for which no licensing arrangement is needed:

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Thank you for your quick attention to this pressing matter. In an internet world, content must be protected to ensure freedom for all.

Reader Comments and Retorts

Statements posted here are those of our readers and do not represent the BaseballThinkFactory. Names are provided by the poster and are not verified. We ask that posters follow our submission policy. Please report any inappropriate comments.

Executives at newspapers and other traditional news organizations have long complained about how some sites make money from their work, putting ads on pages with excerpts from articles and links to the sources of the articles.

Another complaint is that a link to an article sometimes leads to another secondhand user, not the original source, which can deprive the creator of some of the audience for its own site and the ads on it. Some less-well-known sites reprint articles outright, or large parts of them, without permission, a clearer copyright violation. But there is little consensus on how extensive that problem is for news organizations.

It seems to me that the second complaint is legitimate, but the first, not so much... the AP's overall goal of generating significant revenue from content created by news organizations simply is not gonna happen.

Someone, at some point in the not-too-distant future, will find an effective method of advertising on the web, and when that happens revenues will take off...

You never hear anyone comment on how the internet gives these organizations exposure in markets they couldn't have dreamed of reaching not so very long ago... how many reads does, say, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette get each day thanks to fair use links from various sites, BTF included?

that AP policy seems to be really short-sighted. I mean if Google wants to be an ass about it they just set up their engine to not find AP articles, it will hurt the AP a lot more than it would hurt Google.

That's because those out-of-market people aren't terribly important to advertisers. It's nice, but doesn't mean a whole lot.

Sure... but... isn't that because the Post-Gazette or the Plain Dealer or whoever continue to see themselves as only "local" news outlets? I mean, if the PPG can demonstrate x-amount of national/international viewership, why can't they approach Proctor & Gamble or Campbell's Soups or the like to buy ad space on its site?

It seems to me that the second complaint is legitimate, but the first, not so much... the AP's overall goal of generating significant revenue from content created by news organizations simply is not gonna happen.

That second complaint ends up driving most of the concern. Its not hard to find places where even if the links are in fair use, you go down into the comments and you can get the rest of the article posted.

how many reads does, say, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette get each day thanks to fair use links from various sites, BTF included?

Various sites? Probably a great deal. As TFA states, they don't view search engines as the enemy. From news aggregators, inclusive of Primer, probably not as many as you would think b/c few RTFAs.

I am interested to see what the AP comes up with. If they do get buy in from other news sources, they are going to create a market force that could define the scope and limits of fair use. I would think our liberterian leaning friends would like that solution as opposed to a bunch of constipated old men in halloween costumes deciding about an industry they have never participated in.

I don't think they are going to go after people creating original content and using citations to AP sources. They may go after news aggregators and other business models that are parasitic on the content that the AP creates.

I doubt they will have much success in preventing links to articles; however, they could make some movement in the extent of excerpting if that becomes the industry standard.

Sure... but... isn't that because the Post-Gazette or the Plain Dealer or whoever continue to see themselves as only "local" news outlets? I mean, if the PPG can demonstrate x-amount of national/international viewership, why can't they approach Proctor & Gamble or Campbell's Soups or the like to buy ad space on its site?

It's not easy to guarantee the national/international viewership for a couple reasons.

1. They are "just local," as long as they continue to have nobody producing original content outside of that particular area. AP/wire copy isn't going to change that. They're local, because they can't afford to be more.

Now, if there's a running story of national interest in Pittsburgh -- for example, the Steelers might even qualify if they're Super Bowl-bound -- maybe it would be worth it to sell a national company the finite amount of quality ad space. But outside of that kind of special situation, the P-G would be hard-pressed to say "This will guarantee a regular national audience of X percent," because newspapers don't have the manpower to take chances on outside-market stuff.

2. Plus, it's about user behavior. Assuming you don't have AdBlock or an equivalent program, how closely do you think the average person looks at ads on a single article outside their market?

It's not easy to guarantee the national/international viewership for a couple reasons.

Moreover, does the Badger Bugle have the sales staff to go sell ads to the corporate headquarters of Honda. They are pretty stretched to get sales people out to Jim Bob's Generators. Even if they could get a salesforce to Honda, why would they put together a marketing package getting them in the Podunk Gazette that wasn't based on page views AND CLICK THROUGHS (like the current Google Ads type models)

They're not turning down their protections in copyright law, they're simply trying to get out of the conditions of those protections.

Not sure what you mean by this. The only condition on protection is reducing the expression to tangible form.

At most, they are trying to use a market mechanism to determine the bounds of a fair use defense. They are expressly stating what they consider to be beyond fair use. That is laudable. If people disagree, they can just piss all over their guidelines and see what the old men have to say about it.

At most, they are trying to use a market mechanism to determine the bounds of a fair use defense. They are expressly stating what they consider to be beyond fair use. That is laudable. If people disagree, they can just piss all over their guidelines and see what the old men have to say about it.

I'm not sure that it's actually "laudable" to assert a frivolous legal theory.

I'm not sure that it's actually "laudable" to assert a frivolous legal theory.

But they aren't asserting any legal theory, at least not yet.

In their recent history, they have gone after Fairey for the poster, and they have asked Drudge to remove some posts . Drudge admits some of those posts reprinted entire articles.

They have not yet gone after anyone for a mere headline, or a fair use comment or criticism about a newstory.

They are obviously concerned about sites usurping them for "hot news" and they have some jurisprudence to assert a legal theory about search engines and aggregators that step on this position by reporting the gravaman of the news story.

They are obviously concerned about people just copying their articles.

Those both seem reasonable.

When they actually sue someone for using 11 words from a two year old story, then they desesrve scorn. When they try to add some clarity to a very murky area of the law, I don't see how that is worthy of being characterized as frivolous.

Nothing better than an organization that is protected by the First Amendment -- and ostensibly believes in the First Amendment -- deciding that it doesn't apply to them. I'm embarrassed to be a cranky, ex-newspaperman.

I am interested in Szym's position. I don't think he's slipping into the Edgar Winter Liberterianism (ie "Come on and take a Free Ride")

It's a difficult issue and I'm not completely sure there's really a good alternative to something of the sort that we have now. I'm certainly not in favor of the ridiculous penalties written into copyright law and I'm in favor of where there's a government-granted protection, the benefits and responsibilities of the need to be both certain and enforced rather than this nonsense of extending copyrights every time Disney gets worried about Steamboat Willie.

As for the free ride stuff, that's nonsense. I'm not a libertarian because I'm a fan of all the results that libertarianism would personally bring me or society. I don't feel that things I like = things that are just and you guys are perfectly free to feel differently.

Assuming you don't have AdBlock or an equivalent program, how closely do you think the average person looks at ads on a single article outside their market?

If AdBlock or an equivalent didn't exist, I would uninstall my browser. I don't understand how anybody surfs the web without tearing their eyes out of their sockets in its "natural" state.

As for the free ride stuff, that's nonsense. I'm not a libertarian because I'm a fan of all the results that libertarianism would personally bring me or society. I don't feel that things I like = things that are just and you guys are perfectly free to feel differently.

You're not a libertarian, in part at least, because you think it is better for society?

I agree completely with pretty much everything else in that paragraph, though. I'm not interested in taking heroin, or selling a kidney, or evangelizing the dangers of violent video games, or owning an assault rifle, or smoking in a restaurant, or sawing my own leg off, or learning Swahili. My lack of interest doesn't mean that I think any of those should be illegal.

The fact that some things I might enjoy will be things that I'll be allowed to do, or some things I would otherwise choose not to do won't be forced upon me is a nice side benefit, but it isn't the underlying principle. The underlying principle is that it isn't appropriate for one, ten, or a thousand competent adult persons to tell another what is or is not good for that similarly competent person. You may have to deal with certain consequences if you choose certain courses of action, but that's a very fair price for the freedom.

You're not a libertarian, in part at least, because you think it is better for society?

I mean it in the sense that thinks that we like on a personal level aren't necessarily just.

To take an extreme example (not using a real one to keep from any political flame wars), if the government said to me "OK, if you, Dan Szymborski, give up your personal right to own a gun in return for $10,000,000 and 30 years extended to your life," I'd probably do it in a heartbeat, but that wouldn't make the offer just.

Meh. Nothing here is as blatant as that, and those who even come close to violating aren't paid employees, they're people submitting for the first, or nearly, time. Primer article posters have been unfailingly fantastic at fair use. When I was given keys, I didn't even have to be told what site policy was, because it's obvious from jump on basically every single thread.